Put On Christ

Isn’t it hot again? Not quite as hot as yesterday, perhaps, but still very hot. I’m having to wear these things this morning, which doesn’t help; but yesterday I was wearing my shorts. Actually, I was a bit fed up about that because I hadn’t had them on for quite a few weeks and do you know what? They’d shrunk again. People say that washing makes things shrink, but it isn’t just washing. Leaving things in drawers makes them shrink too. Don’t you find that?
Anyway, why am I prattling on about clothes? Because clothes are important to us aren’t they? I think ... I hope ... I’m safe in saying that everyone of us got dressed before we came to church this morning. (No members of the WI here are there?) And most of us will have dressed with some care. Shall I wear the burgundy or the sage or the pale mustard? ... and that’s just Jim Finch choosing his shirt! Clothes are important.
According to the Book of Genesis, they became important very early in the history of mankind. You are familiar with the story. In the perfect new world into which God places man and woman, he gives them freedom, but he defines that freedom for them, gives it meaning, by telling them that there is a limit to it. There is just one thing they must not do. They must not eat of one particular tree. But they do eat of it and, as a result, they find that they have alienated themselves from God. Whereas they used to rejoice in his presence, they now find themselves trying to avoid him. They have an irresistible impulse to run away and hide. They feel exposed, vulnerable, ashamed. They feel that they cannot allow God to look upon them in their failure and disobedience, and that feeling expresses itself in a need to cover their physical nakedness ... to wear clothes.
‘The eyes of both of them — the man and the woman — were opened, and they realised that they were naked, so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.’ (Genesis 3:7.) But here is an important lesson for us right at the beginning of the Bible. Immediately, the text makes it clear that, in God’s eyes, the coverings they have made for themselves are just not acceptable. They’re not adequate and they’re not acceptable. So, just a few verses later, we are told: ‘And the Lord God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them.’(Genesis 3:21). From the start, the Bible teaches that the coverings with which we try to cover ourselves so that we can stand before God fall far short of what is required and simply will not do. When man sins and hides, God comes looking for him, not in wrath but in love. But in his love, in his mercy and grace he says: ‘Get rid of the fig-leaves, whatever your particular fig-leaves are. They will not do. You are right to think that in your sinfulness and disobedience you need a covering. But you are wrong to think that you can provide your own. I will provide a covering for you.’
‘And the Lord God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them.’ Let me tell you: all the good news of the Bible is wrapped up in those three words: ‘God ... clothed them.’ This — the time we’re living in and the time Adam and Eve were living in — is the seventh day of God’s creation when he should have been resting; but he is working still. Clothing all those who will acknowledge their nakedness and accept his provision for them. What do I mean? Let me explain. Let’s leave Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden and get in the time machine I’m so fond of. Let’s move forward through the centuries. OK. Let’s stop here and see what we find.
It’s pitch black, and the air is filled with a sound of rushing wind and torrential rain and crashing waves. Suddenly there’s a peal of thunder that nearly splits our eardrums and, in a great jagged flash of lightening, we sea an ocean, boiling like a cauldron, stretching from one horizon to the other. It’s quite empty, except for ... Can it be? ... No we must be mistaken. Wait for more lightening. Yes, there it is again. There is something in the midst of all that upheaval. A vessel of some kind. But all enclosed. More like a box than a boat. Is there anyone on board? Oh, yes. There within — warm and dry and safe and secure — is a man called Noah and his wife and their children and a whole load of livestock. ‘Noah,’ we are told, ‘found grace in the eyes of the Lord.’ The Lord offered him a covering, an ark, to protect and save him and his household from the cleansing flood of judgment that was coming upon the earth. The ark wasn’t Noah’s idea, you know. It was God’s. Noah might have been the joiner, but God provided the ark. And Noah accepted God’s provision. He and his family entered the ark and, we are told, ‘the Lord shut him in.’ (Genesis 7.16.) He gave him a covering. To Adam and Eve, God gave a covering made of animal skins. To Noah, he gives a covering of gopher wood and pitch and tar. And Noah is saved.
Into our time machine again. Again the centuries speed past. Now we must slow down because we are approaching our Old Testament lesson. And now we can stop. We are in Egypt. I can tell you almost the exact date. Here on the dial of my time machine it reads April 1446 BC. Again it’s dark, but this time there’s no storm. No thunder or lightening. Not even a breeze. We’ve arrived in the house of a Hebrew slave and his family. They are all dressed as if they are about to leave on a journey. The menfolk have their cloaks are pulled up between their legs and tucked into their belts. They are wearing their walking sandals. The head of the household is holding his staff in one hand and a chunk of roast lamb, dripping fat, in the other. The remains of the lamb are on a spit over a glowing charcoal fire. And there is a bowl of lettuce and greens on a makeshift table, and flat, thin bread cakes. Everyone is looking frightened and saying nothing. Finally the woman speaks. ‘Will it work?’ she asks her husband. ‘Moses says it will work,’ he replies. ‘And I believe him. I believe the Lord God has spoken to him and I believe he has heard him truly. We have done as we have been told. We have taken a lamb, the best of the flock. We have killed it and smeared its blood upon the doorposts and lintel. We are under it’s covering ... the Lord’s covering. I believe we shall be safe.’ He breaks off, because far away they can hear cries. Cries of anguish as the Egyptians find their first-born children struck down, killed by some unseen plague that has swept through their houses. Fearfully, the Hebrew woman’s eyes stray to Reuben, her first-born, but he remains standing, looking the picture of health, his face bright in the glow of the fire, ready for the off as soon as dawn breaks.
And so it is that, at first light, doors are cautiously opened from house after house throughout the Hebrew enclave in the district of Goshen, and out step men, women, children, all unharmed by the deadly plague that has swept through Egypt, all saved by the blood of the lamb that each household has slaughtered. God in his grace has again provided a covering for his people, this time a covering of lamb’s blood. And under that covering, there now streams out of Egypt, into the desert, and on into the promised land, the host of slaves that will form the nation of Israel.
Again the centuries pass, 14 of them, and on a starry, starry night in an obscure village in the hill country of Judea, a child is born.
There are rumours of angels, strange happenings, but it is soon all forgotten. Then, about 30 years later, a young man begins to turn this little country at the far end of the Mediterranean upside down. His teaching is extraordinary. His deeds are wonderful. He heals the sick, stills storms, turns water into wine, multiplies bread and fishes, even ... so it is said ... raises the dead. But, sadly, he gets on the wrong side of the powers that be. He refuses to back down or compromise. And the powers that be invoke the might of Rome and the young man is executed. Put to death on a cross. End of story.
But no, it’s not. On the third day his tomb is found to be empty and then, first one, then another, then a group here and a group there, meet him, talk with him, eat with him. Somehow he has returned from the dead. At one time 500 people gather and meet with him. But then, after 40 days, he leaves for good. ‘I’m going back to my Father in heaven,’ he says. ‘But this is not the end. Wait in Jerusalem.’ Wait in Jerusalem? Why? ‘Because before many days you will be clothed with power from on high.’ (Luke 24.29.)
Clothed with what? Power from on high? What power from on high? Surprise, surprise! Come the Day of Pentecost that power came and clothed them, and what was it? It was a He, not an it. It was the Spirit of Jesus himself, the Holy Spirit. He had gone away, but he had come again to cover their lives, to wrap them in himself. When, on that day and on every day in the future, his followers opened their hearts and lives to the provision God had made for them, they found that in some very real sense they ‘put on Christ’. He became their covering, their clothing made for them by God.
Jesus himself was ... and is ... God’s ultimate provision for his people. He is the clothing to which all the other clothings were pointing. When God gave Adam and Eve clothes of animal skins so that they could stand before him in a righteousness that was not their own, those animal skins were pointing forward to Jesus. When God gave Noah a wooden ark in which to ride through the storm to safety, that ark pointed forward to Jesus. When God gave the Hebrew slaves the blood of the lamb to keep them safe from death, the blood of the lamb pointed forward to Jesus, the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.
Once the call was: ‘Put on these clothes of animal skins.’ Once the call was: ‘Put on the ark.’ Once the call was: ‘Put on the lamb’s blood, smear it on your doorposts and lintel.’ But now the call ... and it is a call to each one of us ... is: ‘Put on Christ’. You heard it in our epistle. ‘Clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ.’
Clothes do many things for us, don’t they. They protect us from harm. Last Tuesday I was walking through some nettles near Trollers Gill and I remember being very glad of my trousers! But more to the point, think of a diving suite. Think of armour. A spacesuit. A motorcyclist’s leathers. Firefighter’s clothing. A bulletproof vest. Clothes protect.
But they do more. They give us an identity. The old music hall song said: ‘If you want to know the time ask a policeman.’ But how do you tell who is a policeman. By his clothes. Clothes identify him. They identify the security guard in the shopping mall. An usherette at the cinema. A reader. A nurse. A traffic warden. A soldier, a sailor and so on. They tell others who we are but they also remind us, ourselves, of who we are.
And the other thing clothes do is make us attractive. Well let me qualify that. They make us more attractive than we might be without them. Why else are the clothes shops full of young men and women every weekend? Why else are fashion models superstars? Why else is the rag-trade one of the most lucrative trades to be involved in? Clothes are designed to make us look pleasing, smart ... attractive.
And it is for all these reasons that God says to us this morning: ‘Put on Christ. Today and every day, clothe yourselves in the Lord Jesus Christ.’
Clothe yourself in Christ because, first and foremost, he is the protection God offers you from the consequences of your sin. I’m not subscribing here to any notion of an angry God who wants to strike us down because we’ve broken his laws, offended his purity, disregarded his wishes. I’m speaking of a loving, tender-hearted, merciful and gracious God who wants to wrap us in his arms but cannot unless, for our own protection, we put on Christ. Sin has somehow made us flammable and our God is a consuming fire. That is why Paul says that ‘the perishable (that’s us) must clothe itself with the imperishable (that’s Jesus)’. (1 Corinthians 15:53.)
Clothe yourself in Christ because that is how you declare who and what you are. When you put on Christ, you become ‘in Christ’ ... you become a Christian. That is what a Christian is. Paul tells the Galatians: ‘You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus, for all of you who were baptised into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.’ (Galatians 3:27.) In NT times as a sign of their faith and commitment to Jesus, believers immersed themselves in the waters of a lake or river. And that’s like putting on a garment, says Paul. You’ve put on Christ.
It is our sheltering behind the blood of Jesus on the doorposts of our life, our putting on his goodness and grace that makes us children of God. The clothing that is Christ Jesus gives us our identity.
And clothe yourself in Christ because he is what makes us truly attractive. Truly pleasing to God. Truly pleasing to those in this world who are on the lookout for real goodness, real peace, real joy, real love. If we want to be attractive to God we shall put on Christ because it is of him that the Father has said: ‘This is my son, my beloved, in whom I take my delight.’ Wouldn’t it be wonderful if every time God looked at you he saw Jesus? Yes? Well you’ve got it in one. That’s why we must put on Christ. And if we want to show the world the goodness of God, we shall put on Christ, because he alone is the one who has the power to draw people to the Father. He alone is the perfection of love, joy, peace and all other virtues and graces.
Put on Christ. Clothe yourself in the Lord Jesus Christ. But how? By simple, frequent, ongoing acts of surrender to God. Moments or minutes of true prayer when we reach out like a child, in faith. For though God tells us to put on Christ, he is our Father and he is quick to help us to put on Christ ... to feed our arm through this sleeve ... to coax our other arm into that. And to fasten up the buttons when we’re done. Jesus himself is the best robe, and the Father himself will put him on us if we will let him. ‘If God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?’ So let us, with the Father’s help, put on Christ now. Clothe ourselves in him. That he may be to us the cloak of our protection, the robe of our identity, and the mantle of all our pleasingness to God and to the world.